Open roles at tech companies reached 281,591, up 17% from a year earlier and 73% from the March 2023 low, Lenny Rachitsky posted on X at 17:50 UTC on 11 November, citing data from TrueUp, which tracks openings at about 9,000 tech companies. Hardware engineering openings rose 102%, while open product, engineering and design roles grew just 2%, he wrote.
Hardware engineering added 5,895 openings in the year to 28 October 2026 and software engineering added 1,575, according to the chart Rachitsky attached: 3.7 times as many, by our arithmetic. Official US payroll data point the same way: electrical contractors added 49,500 jobs between September 2025 and September 2026, while three software and computing industries shed 65,800, by our arithmetic from Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.
Business Pill · Capex and Depreciation Explained
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on capital spending and depreciation, the accounting behind the AI infrastructure build-out. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss this report.
The key insight: As we read it, the growth in tech openings is coming from roles that build and run hardware and sites: hardware engineering added 5,895 openings in a year against software engineering’s 1,575, 3.7 times as many by our arithmetic, and US electrical contractors added 49,500 payroll jobs while three computing industries shed 65,800.
The post opens: “The tech job market is in its best shape in years. But almost none of the growth is coming from software jobs.” It says design openings fell 28% and UX research 45%, business operations added about 4,200 openings and supply chain rose 63%.
Rachitsky writes that “Many of the fastest-growing jobs are physical: data center technicians, installers, field service engineers.” His reading: “The AI boom is creating jobs, but mostly in building and running the physical infrastructure (chips, data centers, hardware), not building software.”
Change in open roles at about 9,000 tech companies by category, 29 October 2025 to 28 October 2026, from the TrueUp chart Lenny Rachitsky posted on X on 11 November 2026, as transcribed by us. Hardware engineering added 5,895 openings (+102%) and software engineering 1,575 (+2.5%); the 3.7 times ratio is our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
The tech job market is in its best shape in years. But almost none of the growth is coming from software jobs.
There are 281,000+ open roles at tech companies, up 17% from a year ago and 73% from the March 2023 low.
But open PM, eng, and design roles grew just 2%. Design (−28%) and UX research (−45%) actually shrank.
So where’s the growth coming from? Hardware engineering openings doubled. Business ops added ~4,200 openings. Supply chain is up 63%. Many of the fastest-growing jobs are physical: data center technicians, installers, field service engineers.
The AI boom is creating jobs, but mostly in building and running the physical infrastructure (chips, data centers, hardware), not building software.
Lenny Rachitsky posted at 17:50 UTC on 11 November that there are 281,000+ open roles at tech companies, up 17% from a year ago, while open PM, engineering and design roles grew just 2%, with a chart of TrueUp data by category. The piece takes its category figures from that chart and compares them with US payroll data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
STATE OF THE TECH JOB MARKET IN 2026
Twice a year, I dig into trends in hiring and job openings. This is the fifth report I’ve done, and the most surprising yet:
1. PMs are winning in the AI era 2. Engineering demand has stalled 3. Design openings are at a record low 4. Every role now requires AI skills 5. Tech jobs are concentrating in the Bay Area 6. Remote roles are at a record low 7. The tech job market is growing fast, but mostly outside of software (gasp!)
Rachitsky’s post of 10 November listed the seven headline findings of his State of the Tech Job Market report; the seventh, that the market is growing mostly outside software, is the one the 11 November post sets out in figures.
The Category Numbers
The chart counts the change in open roles from 29 October 2025 to 28 October 2026. After hardware engineering, the fastest growth was in supply chain at 63% (1,416 openings), real estate and facilities at 60% (719) and recruiters at 49% (949).
In absolute terms, business operations and strategy added 4,191 openings, sales 2,280, sales engineering 2,224 and program management 2,104. Product management rose 8.0%, software engineering 2.5% and data science and analytics fell 3.7%, the chart shows.
The left panel of the chart plots weekly openings from August 2022 to October 2026, with a low of 163,014. TrueUp counts openings worldwide at tech companies, the report says, so the figures cover openings, not hires, and are not limited to the US.
What Official US Data Show
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts payroll jobs, not openings, and only in the US, so its figures are a benchmark rather than a like-for-like check. In its Current Employment Statistics, electrical contractors and other wiring installation contractors employed 1,166,400 people in September 2026, up from 1,116,900 a year earlier: 49,500 jobs, or 4.4%, by our arithmetic. The September 2026 figures are preliminary.
Over the same months, computer systems design and related services fell from 2,387,600 to 2,350,900, software publishers from 661,400 to 653,800, and computing infrastructure providers, data processing and web hosting from 476,300 to 454,800. Together that is 65,800 fewer jobs, or 1.9%, by our arithmetic.
As we read the two data sets, they move in the same direction although they measure different things: TrueUp counts openings at about 9,000 tech companies worldwide, and the BLS counts US payroll jobs by industry. Neither shows how much of the change comes from AI projects.
As we read the category list, the fastest-growing groups after hardware engineering, supply chain at 63% and real estate and facilities at 60%, are functions that grow with physical capacity. Rachitsky’s own reading is that the AI boom is creating jobs mostly in building and running physical infrastructure.
Lenny Rachitsky on X, 11 November 2026
“Many of the fastest-growing jobs are physical: data center technicians, installers, field service engineers.”
Three Implications
FOR SOFTWARE ENGINEERS Software engineering openings rose 2.5% in the year to 28 October 2026, the chart shows, and productdesign fell 28%.
FOR HARDWARE AND OPERATIONS ROLES Hardware engineering openings rose 102% and supply chain 63%, according to the TrueUp data Rachitsky posted.
FOR EMPLOYERS BUILDING SITES US electrical contractors employed 1,166,400 people in September 2026, up 4.4% in a year by our arithmetic from BLS data.
The framework says: “This is not a continuation of the cloud capex cycle. This is a different cycle, with different physics.”
As we read it, the job data are one place those physics show up: openings and payrolls are growing in hardware, supply chain and electrical work rather than in software. The framework predates the report and does not discuss it.
Change in US payroll employment, September 2025 to September 2026, seasonally adjusted, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Current Employment Statistics (September 2026 preliminary). The changes and percentages are our arithmetic. These are payroll jobs by industry, not openings, and are not directly comparable with TrueUp’s count.
What Is Not Established
We read the post and the chart image in full but not the paywalled section of the report, so TrueUp’s category definitions and any caveats there are not known to us. The category figures are as transcribed from the chart. The post does not say what share of the new openings is at AI companies or tied to AI projects.
The BLS figures cover US payroll employment by industry, not openings or occupations, and an electrical contractor’s jobs include work outside data centres. The two data sets measure different things over different areas and are not directly comparable. We did not contact Rachitsky or TrueUp.
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Lenny Rachitsky’s TrueUp data put open tech roles at 281,591, up 17% in a year, with hardware engineering adding 5,895 openings, 3.7 times software engineering’s 1,575 by our arithmetic. In US payrolls, electrical contractors added 49,500 jobs in the year to September while three software and computing industries shed 65,800, by our arithmetic from BLS data.
A note on sourcing. We read Lenny Rachitsky’s X posts of 10 and 11 November in full and transcribed the category figures from the chart attached to the 11 November post, which credits TrueUp. We read the free portion of his report of 10 November; its section on the seventh takeaway is behind a paywall and we did not read it. The US employment and job-openings figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics public data API (Current Employment Statistics and JOLTS, seasonally adjusted; September 2026 values are preliminary). Ratios, changes and percentages are our arithmetic. We did not contact Rachitsky or TrueUp.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
